Copper pastes can be fired onto ceramic or other refractory substrates to form a "thick film" conductor. Copper pastes for low temperature firing are disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. SHO-62-110202 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,521,329 relating to a conductor element. The conductor element described in the above-mentioned Japanese publication and U.S. Patent is made by kneading a composition including an organic medium containing an organic resin and firing the composition onto a ceramic substrate to pyrolyze the organic resin, leaving a conductive copper film. The composition is composed of metallic copper in the form of metallic copper coated with a copper oxide coating; copper oxide particles; and an inorganic binder, as follows: (a) 0.2 weight percent or more of oxygen in the form of a copper oxide coating, (b) copper oxide particles in an amount of 15 weight percent or less of the metallic copper, (c) an inorganic binder including copper oxide particles (d), the weight ratio of the copper oxide particles (d) to the copper oxide coating being 0 to 0.5 and the ratio of the total sum of copper oxide, as particles and coating; to the weight of oxide coated copper metal being 0 to 15 parts by weight of copper oxide to 100 parts by weight of oxide coated copper metal. The Japanese publication describes the oxygen in the metallic copper oxide coating and the oxygen in the copper oxide particles as sources for supplying oxygen for pyrolysis or combustion of the resin in the organic medium of the paste composition.
It is generally well known that copper oxide is used as an additive in copper pastes. For high temperature firing applications (850.degree. C. to about 1000.degree. C.) there is no need to distinguish cuprous oxide and cupric oxide since both equally form chemical bonds with ceramic substrates. Therefore, the mixing ratio of the cuprous oxide and cupric oxide does not matter as practiced in the prior art. However, for low temperature firing, as described below, it has been found that the effect of cuprous oxide on the solderability, initial joint strength, and strength after aging differs from that of cupric oxide.
It should be noted that oxygen in copper powder is present in the form of cuprous oxide rather than cupric oxide, and that this cuprous oxide does not directly contribute to combustion of the organic medium as an oxidizing agent, and lowers the degree of sintering when present in excess. Hence prior art copper pastes using copper powder with an oxygen content of 0.2 % or more by weight do not produce sufficient sintering after low temperature firing. As a result, the product has low resistance to soldering and, in particular, its strength after aging is significantly deteriorated.
The present invention has been made in view of such problems of the prior art. It is intended to provide copper paste compositions having, after low temperature firing, a high degree of sintering, good solderability, high initial joint strength, and high joint strength after aging.